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Earth Day: Infrastructure, Efficiency and Excess

I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day
I wanna rock and roll
Kiss: Rock & Roll All Night

At some point, the dots will start to be connected between infrastructure and efficiency, and that point may be when shortages cause us all to take a second look at things we now take for granted, most notably, ready access to conveniences and what have become our excessive lifestyles. Infrastructure makes possible the conveniences of life that define our modern lifestyle, but overconsumption made possible by such infrastructure is excessive and increasingly threatening. There is such a thing as "too much of a good thing." Smart infrastructure that leverages modern technology can be turned to a different purpose, that of providing efficiency AND limiting excess.

When the time comes that shortages raise our attention level and it looks like it may soon be here, we're bound to have a national conversation on efficiency as an alternative lifestyle to what we've grown quite accustomed to in modern society since the end of World War Two: excess as a lifestyle, best characterized by the three step thought process, 1. "A is good." 2. "More of A is better." 3. "Repeat Steps 1 & 2."

You don't have to look far for evidence of this ethos, from Obesity, to Addictions, to Deforestation, to Exhaustion of Fisheries, to Climate Change, to McMansions, to now ... Rising Prices, Dwindling Resources and Looming Shortages.

In a NY Times Op Ed piece on Tuesday (Earth Day), Running Out of Planet to Exploit, Paul Krugman raised the question of reaching real hard limits in our society, similar to the points I raised in a post back on January 15 titled The Party Never Ends ...Cartoon Lemonade.

I have small ranch just west of Austin, and I can tell you, as I build my small eco-barn - my current project, remind me to post pictures some day - I'm thinking a lot about infrastructure (or more accurately, the lack thereof, and what I don't currently have access to out in Dripping Springs). I do have electricity, and while that's a big step, it's the only modern convenience I have at present.

I've noticed, for instance, that it's a lot more efficient to pull water out of a faucet in the wall, like I do in my city home, than it is to haul 5-gallon jugs out for our use during the weekend, as I do now. (WATER UTILITY NETWORK)

With no bathroom, my wife will only hang out with me for a few hours before heading home. (WASTEWATER UTILITY NETWORK)

It's far more convenient to drive on the series of interconnecting highways and county roads to get to my ranch, than it is to drive my car once I go through my ranch gate. (ROAD NETWORK)

It's more efficient to call someone by telephone than to drive over to see them. (TELECOM NETWORK)

It's more efficient to turn on the light switch than it is to light candles. (ELECTRICITY NETWORK)

And it's more efficient to surf the Web and pick up a deal on Craig's List, than it is to shop the classifieds or hit individual garage sales. (INTERNET NETWORK)

Obviously, this list could go on and on, but I think I've made my point - Infrastructures bring efficient delivery of goods and services, which is a huge plus in our modern economy and a huge contributer to our modern lifestyles. And that's a good thing.

But, it seems, it's too good of a thing when efficient delivery can easily lead to over-consumption and under-appreciation, which I would describe as a pretty good short-hand definition of waste and excess.

It's not just oil that has defied the complacency of a few years back. Food prices have also soared, as have the prices of basic metals. And the global surge in commodity prices is reviving a question we haven't heard much since the 1970s: Will limited supplies of natural resources pose an obstacle to future world economic growth?

What Americans mostly remember about the 1970s are soaring oil prices and lines at gas stations. But there was also a severe global food crisis, which caused a lot of pain at the supermarket checkout line - I remember 1974 as the year of Hamburger Helper - and, much more important, helped cause devastating famines in poorer countries.

In retrospect, the commodity boom of 1972-75 was probably the result of rapid world economic growth that outpaced supplies, combined with the effects of bad weather and Middle Eastern conflict. Eventually, the bad luck came to an end, new land was placed under cultivation, new sources of oil were found in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and resources got cheap again.

But this time may be different: concerns about what happens when an ever-growing world economy pushes up against the limits of a finite planet ring truer now than they did in the 1970s.

For one thing, I don't expect growth in China to slow sharply anytime soon. That's a big contrast with what happened in the 1970s, when growth in Japan and Europe, the emerging economies of the time, downshifted - and thereby took a lot of pressure off the world's resources.

Meanwhile, resources are getting harder to find. Big oil discoveries, in particular, have become few and far between, and in the last few years oil production from new sources has been barely enough to offset declining production from established sources.

And the bad weather hitting agricultural production this time is starting to look more fundamental and permanent than El Niño and La Niña, which disrupted crops 35 years ago. Australia, in particular, is now in the 10th year of a drought that looks more and more like a long-term manifestation of climate change.

Suppose that we really are running up against global limits. What does it mean?

For some, it means "I've got mine, screw you." For others, "Nothing I can do about it, so I guess I'll just keep on doing what seems to work for me - I wanna rock and roll all nite..."

But for those of us who already HAVE, and want to continue to live a quality life in some manner, I think our choices lie along this continuum: 1) Ignore what's happening - Hope as Strategy; 2) Watch our lifestyles ebb away and grow resentful and blame others - Pointing Fingers as Strategy; or 3) Acknowledge limits, leverage technology to be more efficient and shift our basis for happiness - Reality as Strategy.

Krugman continues with his statement of the problem, but alas, offers no solution ...

Even if it turns out that we're really at or near peak world oil production, that doesn't mean that one day we'll say, "Oh my God! We just ran out of oil!" and watch civilization collapse into "Mad Max" anarchy. But rich countries will face steady pressure on their economies from rising resource prices, making it harder to raise their standard of living. And some poor countries will find themselves living dangerously close to the edge -or over it. Don't look now, but the good times may have just stopped rolling. Running Out of Planet to Exploit - New York Times

So assume that we grasp the problem and have zoomed past denial and anger to acceptance ... What about a solution? Well, for one, it starts with a changed attitude...for a more in-depth look at Earth Day's roots, check out this Interview with Earth Day Pioneer Denis Hayes. It's less about "hugging trees" and more about "being real and surviving."

And this brief article brings wireless infrastructure into the picture as a part of the solution. It describes how two inventions harness natural earth rhythms with new technologies to provide efficiency through infrastructure: Smart Streetlights and Smart Sidewalks.

Lunar-Resonant Streetlights, designed by the Civil Twilight Collective, respond to ambient moonlight, dimming and brightening as the moon cycles through its phases each month - and can result in a potential 90-95 percent energy savings over standard streetlights, which account for 38 percent of all electricity used for lighting in the United States. Pilot installations are on the near horizon, and the Civil Twilight crew is also working on an off-grid variation that's solar-powered and WiFi equipped; it will be presented at a World Bank conference on Lighting Africa. After Earth Day

This article digs deeper on the Lunar Lighting project...

This computer-generated image is the vision of Civil Twilight, a design collective based in San Francisco's Mission District. With its concept for a new approach to outdoor lighting, the group asks: What if streetlights could respond to ambient moonlight, dimming and brightening each month as the moon cycles through its phases? On clear nights when the moon is full, streetlights might even turn off completely. The scheme, which they call "lunar-resonant streetlights," could save as much as 80-90 percent of the energy used in street lighting while bringing back the experience of moonlight and stargazing to urban areas.

The concept, a small and simple intervention that could impact light pollution and energy use on a global scale, won this year's Metropolis Next Generation ideas competition. For the first time, the four-year-old program took up a theme: energy - its uses, reduction, consumption, efficiencies, and alternatives. Runners-up included an LED display for faucets that makes people aware of water usage; a multistory residential unit that generates renewable energy and treats waste; thermo-responsive architectural cladding that expands and contracts to regulate building temperature; and a highway sound barrier that absorbs airborne pollutants.

Perhaps the most fascinating fact that the collective's research revealed, however, is a little-known detail about the history of electricity: in the 1930s, with the spread of electrification and the consolidation of utilities, streetlights became a convenient way to off-load excess energy from the grid at night, when power demands dropped significantly. This intentionally inefficient system determined the norm for nighttime outdoor lighting levels, a standard that has not been revised since, even though the need for off-loading ended in the 1970s. What we now assume is a safety measure is in fact the forgotten remnant of an obsolete energy practice. Next Gen juror Fred Dust, head of IDEO's Smart Space design practice, says the jury found this part of the proposal both shocking and compelling. "It's such an archaic concept that it seems like science fiction," he says.

Questioning current lighting standards and asking what level of illumination is actually necessary brings some sur­prising answers. Willis explains that the human eye, with its complementary systems of rods and cones, evolved to adapt to both full-sun days and moonless nights. "We can see an incredibly broad range of intensities," he says. "The difference between sunlight and starlight is something like a hundred thousand orders of magnitude." Bright moonlight is in the transitional part of this range, when both rods and cones are active. "It's a natural biological benchmark," Willis says, "because we evolved with it." Meanwhile, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' recommendations for artificial lighting are only about ten times brighter than full moonlight - almost nothing compared to what the human eye is capable of seeing and yet significant in terms of our ability to appreciate the night sky.

So what are the current standards based on? Comfort levels and perceptions regarding nighttime safety. Since the off-loading days of the 1930s, we've become accustomed to the feel of brightly lit streets and parking lots. But ironically, studies have shown no link between outdoor lighting intensity and crime or accident rates. What's more dangerous, Willis says, is the drastic variation in light levels within an urban area. As you drive, for example, from a well-lit major thoroughfare to a darkened residential street, your eye does not have time to adjust, and your vision is impaired. Moonlight is much more even, he explains, and that makes it more effective for human vision. By filling in only what light is needed, lunar-resonant streetlights would help restore this evenness and actually improve nighttime visibility. "We're interested in the question of standards," Willis says. "Do you need to be able to read a newspaper in the middle of the night outside, and is that really worth all of these other things we've lost?"

As Seely points out, another thing we've lost is an appreciation for electric light itself. "The evolution of streetlights was partly decorative," she says, "and this project is in some ways about getting people to reappreciate light where it's spectacular, tapping into the wonder of how beautiful it is."

As her photographs show, the gradual ratcheting up of artificial lighting means that spectacle is harder and harder to achieve. Her 2006 photograph Metropolis: 36 10 N 115 8 W, taken from the desert outside Las Vegas, makes the city look dangerously radioactive. A light beam shooting from the top of the Luxor hotel pyramid looks like it would be visible from space, raising questions about what its competitors will do to top it - and how long ago it was that Las Vegans last saw a star in the sky. Lunar Light

luxor.jpg

If I could sum up the wisdom of this approach, it would be this -

As a first stage in dealing with pending shortages, we need not sacrifice a thing but our archaic and unconscious, and sometimes, lazy habits of consumption.

That's a relief! We don't have to sacrifice ... yet! It's like realizing that you don't have to start dieting and exercising - no situps! - yet, you just have to give some thought to what you are putting in your mouth and get up and move around now and then...small changes make big differences, if started in time. "You can Pay me now, or Pay me later," as the old Brake Check commercial used to say....

By taking a new look at how we do things and asking questions about why we do things the way we do - "why don't we take advantage of new technologies that enable new solutions?" - we can achieve dramatic savings that have no negative impact on our lifestyles, in fact, that may even improve our lifestyles.

But such an approach requires a conscious approach to examining what we do and how we do it. No more living on habits and going through the motions to find happiness by consuming more and enjoying less.

A key benefit that we can realize from metropolitan broadband that is only now becoming appreciated is that the new infrastructure affords city governments as well as other large enterprises the opportunity to do just what I described above - to examine how they do things and why, and then adjust their processes by using wireless broadband to reduce excess costs and avoid adding labor costs - in other words, to do more with less.

Such is the growing and changing perspective on the value of infrastructure - no longer pipes that provide water too cheap to meter, but smart pipes that detect leaks to prevent waste...

Posted on April 24, 2008 at 07:37 AM

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